


Oasis

by belmione



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: But only because there's not much way to write a prequel with this ship without light angst, F/F, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-08 00:38:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17376197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmione/pseuds/belmione
Summary: "Catra wants to tell her.  She practices it in her mind and wonders what it would be like to say it out loud and what she would do if admitting it brought other things to the surface. Would it scare her away to see the graveyard of buried hurts and frustrations and fears?  Would saying it dissolve the myriad of ways Catra knows how to stay strong and keep quiet and stay alive?What would she do if she told Adora she loved her only for it to unravel in front of her?"A Catra-POV exploration of Adora and Catra's relationship before Adora defects.  Begins sometime in their early teens and ends at Episode 1.





	Oasis

“Do you ever, you know, wonder about stuff?”   


Catra refrains from rolling her eyes and thinks that the things that make Adora wonderful are always the exact same things that make her insufferably annoying.  This contagious ability of hers to see possibility in things can also grate on Catra who doesn’t always like to look into things too closely. That sort of thing invites trouble and Catra has enough trouble on her plate already.  

Catra lies flat in the bunk that’s technically hers but that they share anyway trying to figure out what sort of half-truth to tell Adora.  Adora stares at the quilting on the mattress of the bunk above them, the one that’s technically Catra’s, blue eyes wide and pensive.   
  
“No, never,” Catra answers, short and monotone, settling for an attempt to joke and blow it off. Adora huffs at the obvious traces of sarcasm in her voice.     
  
“Be serious, Catra.”   
  
“If you want me to be serious, be more specific.”   
  
“Well, I mean like where we came from.  Do you wonder about that stuff?”   
  
Catra shrugs.   
  
“Well, yeah, sometimes.  Everybody does.”   
  
“So what do you think?”   
  
“I don’t know, I don’t really dwell on it for that long.”   
  
“Why not?”   
  
“It doesn’t really change anything. If I don’t have the answer and know I’m not going to get it, it doesn’t do me that much good to wonder about it, does it?”   
  
Adora is obviously not pleased with her answer, but she doesn’t press the issue.  She knows better. Catra has a stubbornness to her that frustrates Adora, much to her delight.  She’s learned that the more she presses Catra to talk, the quieter she is. Which only makes it more fun to tease her, of course.   
  
“Do you have…theories?” she ventures, trying still to get past one of the many walls Catra throws up.   
  
“Not really,” she lies.  Catra guesses that she ended up here for the same reasons she’s almost been discharged from here too.  They, whether they is her parents or an orphanage, probably didn’t want to put up with her anymore and passed her off so someone else could deal with her.  But she doesn’t tell Adora that. Adora is easily upset where Catra is concerned and she doesn’t want to sit through endless platitudes that the things she knows to be true aren’t really.  Things like the fact that Catra is quite obviously not wanted anywhere. Or, at least, not anywhere beyond Adora’s presence, for whatever reason. Adora’s words of comfort, though enjoyable, are never quite true.  

“I mean, it’s probably what they tell us.  Our parents died in some battle or fight or something,” she says, playing at the kind of nonchalance Catra is faking too, but there's a half-heartedness to it that makes it clear that Adora isn’t satisfied with this answer.  But then, Adora is never completely satisfied with anything. Not with the Horde’s answers, not with Catra’s, not with her training, not even with the way her hair is pulled back. As if she can tell what Catra is thinking, she reaches back and tightens her ponytail and smooths down any stray hairs, not that there were any.  She quirks an eyebrow like she always does when she doesn’t buy it and Catra growls under her breath.   
  
“And, I mean, even if that’s true, don’t you wonder who they were?” she asks.   
  
“Who?”   
  
“Your parents?”   
  
“Isn’t it obvious?  Cat plus human plus bad sorcery equals me.”   
  
“Would you stop being sarcastic?” Adora asks, both annoyed and tickled.  She giggles a little and nudges Catra playfully and Catra, despite herself, smiles back.   
  
“You know, you keep asking me all these questions, but what about your theories?” she asks, frustrated with Adora and all of her paradoxes.  She’s simultaneously perceptive and oblivious to Catra, and often too interested in parsing out the whys and the wherefores of a problem and missing larger swaths of a picture.   
  
“Hm.  I’m not sure.  It’s just a weird feeling, I guess.”   
  
“What is?”   
  
“Just…not knowing how it all adds up,” she sighs.  “I mean, it seems like it does, but I don’t know.”   
  
“I don’t know, either.  I’d just let it go,” Catra shrugs and knows as she says it that there’s no way Adora will ever let anything go.  She also thinks Adora’s feeling, this curiosity about who her parents were, is a luxury she doesn’t even know she has.  Everyone loves Adora. Of course she wonders who they were and is able to dream that they were probably as fond of her as everyone is. Catra, on the other hand, doesn’t like to wonder too hard about these things.  Things add up too easily for her and not always in ways she likes to dwell on for long. 

Catra wonders if she should talk more openly about it to her, talk the way Adora does with this openness that seems impossible.  Adora wants her to talk to her. She says it all the time in a million little ways. Long looks and soft smiles. A soft hand in hers.  Assurances that she’s there and listening if Catra wants to talk. 

But Catra knows with a depth that she can’t explain that putting these things into the space between them will make them too tangible.  It’s difficult enough to hold herself together and the risk of falling apart isn’t one she can take. Not here, where there’s no rest. Not here where there are dangers both known and alien and she’s never sure which one is going to appear next. Adora is a brief and sweet respite from it, but a respite that still can’t save her, an oasis with no defense, too small and too wrapped up in its own attempts to stave off lurking threats to be able to defend her too.

Catra has learned better than to let down a defense.  This place knows how to strike at an opportune time and with a merciless efficiency.   So she lies, if not to Adora, to herself.

Sometimes Adora notices and she presses it.  She’s at times oblivious to or trying to justify in a feat of mental acrobatics the myriad ways in which this place is cruel to Catra, to both of them, really.  But Adora isn’t stupid and she has a laser focus when it comes to Catra. She can ignore the things that surround them, but she can’t or won’t ignore Catra herself.  If anything, it’s almost something of a spotlight she has on her, a focus that’s too narrow but deep all the same. She knows when things are amiss and wants so badly to dig deeper, get at the hidden truth behind Catra and why she isn’t meeting her eyes or snaps more than usual.  Wants to help and fix a situation that can’t be fixed. She presses and presses.

“Something’s wrong,” with a calculating scowl and darting eyes after, as if looking for the assailant who did it to her, as if looking for ways to avenge her already.

“Catra, just tell me what happened,” with a soft tone that’s undeniably sweet and a warm hand on her shoulder.

“Are you alright?” with knitted brows and a stare Catra wishes she could meet and can’t all the same.

She can’t blame Adora and her penchant for tackling a problem with immediacy at the same time that she knows Adora will never completely understand that when Catra is threatened, escape and defense is what comes naturally.  Attack and offense is a luxury Adora has never truly understood she has.

Catra gets more and more adept and passing off half-truths and falsehoods every day.  Adora stops noticing as often. She still tries, but when Catra is playing at convincing herself, convincing others becomes so easy, so second-nature.

Still, for all that Adora can’t help her and doesn’t always understand, the act of trying isn’t something Catra can forget or wholly let go.  Oasis is a necessity that keeps her sanity intact here. Adora is comfort that no one else seems able or willing to provide. Even if she can’t talk with her about the things she can’t even voice to herself, Adora is still steadfastly there.  She’s there to let Catra cry. She’s there to let her hiss at her when she tries to ask her what’s wrong. She’s there when Catra snaps at her for trying. She’s there when Catra can’t do anything but curl up on her lap and sleep. She’s there for Catra’s faltering half-attempts at talking about it before they dissolve and she can’t any longer.  Adora is one of few constants in a short and chaotic life that Catra is unable to make sense of despite her best efforts, despite her lies, despite burying every fear and horror to convince everyone, least of all herself, that things are alright.

Catra wishes, sometimes, that she had words to describe what Adora is for her.  But when it’s so difficult to describe even simple and routine things here, Adora is complex and her importance difficult to grasp or name.

She gives up for years on understanding the particulars of it.  She doesn’t need to, she reasons. All that matters is that Catra and Adora watch each other’s backs.  How Catra, who’s almost universally only tolerated, managed to end up in Adora’s good graces she’ll never completely understand.  She’d ask Adora, but Catra is afraid of the answer. Too many answers to complex questions have been too painful.  
  
Catra does find the answer, eventually.  It takes swiping a book she knows Octavia has read over and over from her locker.  She recognizes it from spying on her when she’s on breaks from duty, little moments when her guard is down.  Catra likes watching people from afar, learning their little tics and behaviors, the things they like, the things that set them off.  She can’t help but wonder what’s in this book she loves so. Hoping for a laugh, she puts in the combination she’s memorized by watching her, and runs off, gleeful, to her and Adora’s bunk.  
  
Adora sighs.  
  
“Catra, put it back before she notices.”    
  
“Hell no, not before we read it,” she cackles.  The others catch on quickly. Deviations from routine are hard-won and picked up on quickly. Lonnie giggles too, settling next to Catra in Adora’s bunk to read over her shoulder.  Rogelio follows and Adora sputters at how her bed has become a center for disobedience and broken rules.  
  
“We really shouldn’t be doing this.  Shadow Weaver won’t be happy, Catra, put it back.  I don’t know if I can keep getting her off your back-”  
  
“I didn’t ask you to,” she waves her off, opening it.  “I’ll deal with it if she gets pissed.”  
  
“Adora’s probably right,” Kyle stutters, voice cracking, from behind Adora.  
  
“No one’s going to get in trouble if everyone will just shut up and enjoy the opportunity.  Plus, Octavia just went off break. We have another four hours before she’ll be anywhere near her locker.”  
  
Adora pauses, purses her lips.  
  
“Fine.  But it needs to be back in there a half hour before her rotation ends to-“  
  
“Give us plenty of time to put it back, yeah, we know, Adora,” Lonnie sighs.  
  
Sufficiently assuaged, Adora joins them.  
  
It’s a book, but a book unlike anything else they’ve seen.  Shadow Weaver is always forcing their noses into some kind of textbook, but all of those are purely technical.  
  
This is a storybook.  They know stories well enough.  They’ve told one another stories, hushed, late at night when they’re supposed to be asleep.  They’ve heard of storybooks, but none of them have actually read one before.   
  
They don’t have much to compare it to, but they agree it’s more than a little ridiculous and clumsy at the very same time they can’t put it down.    
  
They take turns reading it aloud in a low murmur to one another.  Laughing in that muffled way when you shouldn’t be laughing that always makes things more fun.   There’s a lot to laugh about. The overblown way the characters problems are, the sweeping way they speak to each other that’s so much funnier when they read it aloud to one another.  
  
There’s also a lot to wonder about in this story.  The characters’ nervousness when they get too close to one another and they all huddle closer to the book here, reading in turns with bated breath.  The stunned silence when Adora falters because the characters have kissed each other.  
  
“What does that mean?” Lonnie wrinkles her nose.  
  
“I’m not sure,” Adora scowls and she flips through the book.  
  
“Don’t spoil it!” Kyle exclaims, trying to stop her, and she jerks away.  
  
“I’m not, I’m just trying to figure out what it means.  Maybe there’s a glossary,” she murmurs, squinting with that look that means she’s not going to let this go until she figures it out.  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Catra waves her hand.  “It doesn’t matter what it means. Just keep going, we’ll figure out later.”  
  
“Yes it does,” Adora argues and Catra is about to bite back a little bit when she notices an illustration on one of the pages Adora is about to flip past. “Wait!”  
  
The book is mostly devoid of pictures, unlike the textbooks they’re used to that are littered with diagrams.  But this one has sporadic illustrations, black and white drawings that are little more than sketches and there with no rhyme or reason.    
  
Adora stops and they all stare at the little explanation underneath.  
  
 _Jasper and Eveline kiss._  
  
“So that’s a kiss?” Kyle asks and Adora squints at it harder.  
  
“I guess so.”  
  
“So you just stand there and smush your mouth with someone else’s? Sounds weird,” Lonnie quirks an eyebrow.  
  
“There’s got to be more to it than that, though,” Adora argues, staring at it still.  
  
“Or maybe there isn’t,” Catra offers, sensing an oncoming obsession.  Adora fixates on things so easily and once she’s zeroed in on something, nothing can pull her away from it.  
  
“There’s something we’re missing.  I’ll have to do some research,” she snaps the book shut and stands, clear that this gathering is over.  
  
“Or we could just keep reading,” Catra leans forward and tries to snatch the book from her, but to no avail.  Adora is already on her way out the door to replace the book, an hour ahead of schedule.  
  
“I don’t know why you hang out with her so much,” Lonnie rolls her eyes and Catra shrugs.  
  
“I never said it made sense.”   
  
“You can just admit you have a soft spot for her,” Lonnie smirks and Catra groans.  
  
“Over my dead body.”  
  
But true to her word, Adora comes back that evening with a pile of books, dumping them unceremoniously into the bunk where Catra is napping.  They topple over, startling her awake.  
  
“Hey!  A warning would be nice!”  
  
“Sorry, I was about to drop them.  But look, I found some things.”  
  
“Did you steal those?”  
  
“No, I told Shadow Weaver I was doing research into the social habits of Etheria to improve our understanding and contribute to the development of more comprehensive defense tactics,”  she smirks, allowing herself a moment of playful self-satisfaction.  
  
“And I bet she bought that bullshit and thanked you for ‘taking initiative’, didn’t she?”  
  
“Yup!” she grins and Catra isn’t sure if she hates the way her smile is knowingly a little prideful or loves the way her smiles always seem to glow a little bit.  “Mostly because it actually doesn’t hurt to research this stuff, it just also has some perks for us that she doesn’t know about. But look, we were right!” she holds up multiple books in turn, pointing to sections of text Catra can’t read from here the print is so small.  “That was a kiss. Apparently, it’s used as a way to show affection, usually romantic,” she reads aloud, measured and clear.  
  
“What the hell is that?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Romantic.”  
  
“I found that too.  Relating to love or a close loving relationship,” she reads them in turns, picking up open books and discarding them when she’s done.  “ Love, especially when sentimental or idealized. A relationship between two people who are in love with each other but who are not married to each other.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Catra groans, stopping Adora before she can keep going.  They’ll be here all night if she keeps letting her read off articles and definitions.  Even if she’s not sure what being married is, she’s not about to get Adora started on something else.  “I think.”   
  
“It’s even in a version of our health textbook  I guess it’s an earlier edition because I’ve never seen this chapter.  I’m not sure why they’ve never taught us this. Maybe we just jumped the gun a little and they were going to soon.”   
  
“Or they’ve just been hiding it from us,” Catra yawns and moves to sit next to Adora, settling into her side as she sets open books across both of their laps.   
  
“Maybe,” she pauses, giving Catra that same half-scowl she always does when she’s thinking or when something doesn’t make sense to her.  “But what interest would they have in doing that? What’s the motivation?”   
  
“I mean, they’ve never needed motivation before other than the fact that they suck and are dedicated to making everything suck,” Catra shrugs.   


“Catra, be serious.”

“I am being serious!”   
  
But there’s no use.  Adora doesn’t see the million little hints that things are not as they seem here.  She’s not completely oblivious. She knows that Shadow Weaver doesn’t like Catra. She knows it well enough to do what she can to protect her, and Catra is grateful for it at the same time that she resents it so keenly, a resentment that sits in the pit of her stomach like a weight she can’t dislodge no matter how hard she tries.  

She knows that Adora dismisses some of what Shadow Weaver does to her as being a result of attitude and disrespect.  It’s true that Catra doesn’t attempt to placate Shadow Weaver or any of the higher-ups here. It’s true that sometimes she even baits them, deliberately doing things she knows will annoy them just to know that there’s something predictable about this place, some way she can pull strings and watch things move and know that it’s her controlling it.  

It baffles Adora, but Adora doesn’t understand that Shadow Weaver will never like her, even if she did all of the things Adora does, even if she listened to every command, toed the line just as closely as she.  Adora has never felt the sting of disapproval she didn’t earn and couldn’t alter somehow. She will never know that no matter how Catra acts, nothing will change, and given the choice between obeying and rebellion, rebellion salvages scraps of dignity that Adora has never had to try and scramble for.  

  
Explaining isn’t worth it to Catra right now.  Maybe not ever. Not when Adora won’t understand anyway.  Not when Adora’s idea of fixing it would likely be to try to force Shadow Weaver to like her.  Not when she’d never understand that that can only ever implicate Catra. Not when Adora will try to fix it by working with a system that’s broken already.   
  
It’s a much nicer and easier thought right now to wonder about kissing and love, huddled next to her as she prattles excitedly over a pile of research.   
  
“What did you think of that book?” she asks, leaning forward, grinning, and Catra simultaneously wants to move away and move closer.    
  
“I’ll tell you if you admit that you’re glad I stole it,” she quips back and Adora rolls her eyes.   
  
“I don’t think you should’ve done it.”   
  
“Oh, come on-“   
  
“But I’ll admit it was fun,” she smiles, soft and a little mischievous, for once excited at the prospect of having done something she wasn’t supposed to.  “We’ve never gotten to read stories before. It just adds something that these don’t,” she holds up one of the research texts and sighs. “I don’t know how to explain it.”   
  
“No, I get it,” she tells her and Adora nods and tips her head to rest against Catra’s.  The story, while a bit over-blown, did put into words something Catra has always felt but couldn’t identify.    It’s the feeling she has whenever she’s here with Adora like they are right now. Quiet and nestled into one another by themselves in the little corner bunk.  There’s the way Catra feels about Adora when they’re sparring, or in class, or in front of the rest of the squad, or particularly when Shadow Weaver is around. But there’s a different feeling to everything when none of that is present, something comforting and right when it’s just the two of them.  It’s the kind of feeling that makes Catra want to take Adora and run, if only they had anywhere to run. Adora would never defect, but Catra can dream, and dream she does about what it would be like if all of their moments were as undisturbed and sweet as this one is.   
  
“You do?”   
  
“Yeah.  One is just a definition,” she picks up one of the texts and then tosses it aside.  “And one is more like an explanation. But kinda like one you already know. I don’t know if that makes sense.”   
  
But Adora is already smiling.   
  
“Exactly like that,” she nods and they go silent for a moment, the kind of silence that grows and gets more difficult to break after.  Catra feels as if she should say something about all of this. About the way there’s a hum between them now. She isn’t sure if it’s new or if it was always there and is just apparent now that it’s been named.  She wants to tell her. Tell her how there’s something in this story that feels like them, something she understands without really understanding how she does. 

“I’m not completely sure, because the concept is new and everything, of course, but,” Adora interrupts before she falters again.  She stutters over the next part and normally Catra would laugh, make some sort of playful dig, but something about the moment makes her want to stay as quiet as possible, wait with bated breath and guard this moment and never let it go. “It was kind of like how I think I feel about you.”   
  
Catra looks up and Adora watches her, apprehensive, cheeks flushed pink.  It’s the same sort of look she gets when she’s waiting to be told that she’s done a good job, but more.  More what, Catra can’t say. Regardless, she loves that Adora is a little bit different around her than she is around anyone else, even if she can’t quite describe it.   
  
“Yeah.  Me too,”  is all Catra can give her and she worries if it’s enough.  But the grin Adora gives her is wide and beautiful. 

The moment doesn’t stay, though.  Adora grins at first, but after she has a moment to mull it over, she pauses, an expression somewhere between concern and outright worry crossing her features.     
  
“Do you think that’s okay?”   
  
She doesn’t need to clarify who it’s okay with.  For Adora, who usually doesn’t have to worry about staying within the Horde’s sphere of approval, this is a rare worry, one that’s more familiar to Catra.  Catra would like to tell Adora what she wants to hear. But she’s learned that just the absence of any evidence that something is okay or right can be damning.    
  
“I don’t know.  I know I sure as hell don’t care, though.”   
  
Adora smiles in a way that’s both joyful and not at all assuaged.  For once, Catra understands the feeling because there are a lot of things about Catra that aren’t right or appropriate.  They’re always the kinds of things that she’s never been told explicitly aren’t ideal, but messages don’t have to be spoken to be conveyed all the same.   
  
They’ve never told her that things like her ears, and her eyes, and her teeth are wrong.  No one has ever said to her face that the way her hands have nails that are more like claws and Adora’s are smooth, the way her hair is more mane than anything else is a problem. But she knows that the people who have more human ears and eyes and hands, particularly Adora and her sleek, golden hair, don’t get picked on by Shadow Weaver.   
  
It’s this way when Catra starts to think about what Adora told her.  This always happens when she listens to Adora. She should learn by now to tune her out if she knows what’s good for her. For all that Adora can’t get her to talk to her about how she feels, she certainly has a knack for making her feel things she doesn’t want to.  She makes it difficult to ignore all the things Catra doesn’t want to think about, highlighting the complexity of things, a way of knowing when Catra is hiding something, a way of making them float to the surface, and she loves her and hates her for it at the same time.     
  
Catra can’t ignore the flood of truths that come when she thinks about Adora.   
  
She knows without having to consider it for even a second that if she loves anyone enough to be with them the way Adora described, this romantic way, it’s Adora herself.  She knows that Adora, for her, is both a manifestation of everything she isn’t, all the ways she’s insufficient, and also the only person she’s ever thought might actually love her.     
  


Personal attachments here are obviously discouraged, and particularly discouraged for Catra.  She knows without having to be told that Adora can try to protect her, but that Catra’s own attachments will always be seen as divisive, particularly attachments to Adora.  She knows that loving Adora would only be tolerated insofar as it was seen as loyalty to a captain. Anything else would sully Shadow Weaver’s golden cadet and nothing Adora said would be able to protect her from a retaliation that would be total and swift.  Adora can love her, but she can’t love Adora back.    
  
This book they steal twice more from Octavia’s locker doesn’t say that love like theirs isn’t ideal, but Catra knows that she isn’t hearing about love quite like theirs.  Not in conversations, not in this book, not in the others Octavia brings, not anywhere. It’s true that they rarely hear about any kind of real love, but at least these stories have filtered through somehow.  Others, ones like theirs, are strangely absent.   
  
It’s enough that both of them, even Adora, know to check thoroughly to make sure everyone is asleep before they kiss each other for the first time in the middle of the night, soft and hesitant and a little clumsy.  They’ve been dancing around this since that night, curling closer to each other as they sleep, closing the gap between them more and more every day, testing to see if the other will welcome it or not. 

And then one night, Adora, impatient, throws hesitance to the wind and, with a look somewhere between determination, longing, and gentleness, leans forward to kiss her. 

They don’t know what they’re doing and they miss each other at first, but they find a rhythm after a moment.  It’s an undeniably soft and sweet rush that disarms her, removes any knee-jerk reaction to deny that she likes it, any push to push Adora away to save face.  She loves it and loves her and, at the same time, Catra can’t keep her eyes completely closed during it. She thinks that kissing Adora makes her feel wonderful in ways she can’t fully describe and she also can’t help but keep one eye always open and watching during it, one thought in the back of her mind always preoccupied with possible threats.

What would it be like to kiss her somewhere far away from here without anything to look out for?

But Catra knows not to entertain impossibilities like this and, this time, Adora knows too.  They know to keep a watchful eye out every time they kiss each other after that, know without being told that getting caught would have disastrous consequences.   
  
They do this for nearly a year.  Catra doesn’t want to discuss it, is content to pretend that their friendship is continuing as normal despite the fact that she can’t sleep anymore without kissing Adora at least once before she goes to sleep.  Despite the fact that clumsy, fleeting kisses have turned to expert ones, long and languid ones, breathless ones that seem as if they’re never going to end. 

Even Adora doesn’t press to define it immediately as if she knows it might be too delicate to disturb, too breakable to name. 

But Catra should know better than to think Adora will ever truly let anything rest for too long. Adora will want answers eventually and this is an answer Catra isn't sure she can give. 

Adora murmurs that she loves her on a nondescript night, quiet, nuzzled into her neck and Catra both relaxes into it and tenses.  Adora notices when the silence drags on too long and pulls away, apprehensive. 

“I'm sorry. Does that bother you?”

Catra shakes her head no, but she can't look at her just yet. 

“Um. Do you feel the same? It's okay if you don't,” she backpedals, the telltale flush in her cheeks and the way her words start to tumble out faster and faster signaling that she’s starting to panic and doesn’t want to show it.  Catra rolls her eyes and places a palm on each of her cheeks and finally looks at her. She’s learned that nothing really stops Adora, but sometimes this slows down the breakneck and constant motion of her. 

“Stop freaking out.  And to answer your question,” she pauses here and Adora is still apprehensive, but at least now she waits for Catra to answer.  

Catra knows the answer already.  She’s known the answer always, even when she didn’t know what words to give to it.  But this runs deeper than she knows how to handle and may drag other things to the surface she wants to keep buried.

“Maybe,” she sighs and tips her head to rest in the crook of Adora’s neck.  Adora laughs, quiet and indulgent and a little nervous.

“What do you mean, maybe?  It’s a yes or no question-”  

There’s both a smile, gentle teasing, and a tinge of hurt in her voice that Catra wants to erase and can’t at the same time.  Instead, she pulls her closer, buries her face into the warmth of her skin, drowns her questions out with the sound of her heartbeat, and hopes it’s enough.

“Sorry.  Maybe is good too, I can work with maybe,” Adora murmurs, bright and gentle and genuine in a way that makes Catra wish the ground would swallow her whole right here.

Adora doesn’t mention it again.

Catra wants to tell her.  She practices it in her mind and wonders what it would be like to say it out loud and what she would do if admitting it brought other things to the surface.

Every time she thinks of it, she wonders.  Would it scare her away to see the graveyard of buried hurts and frustrations and fears?  Would saying it dissolve the myriad of ways Catra knows how to stay strong and keep quiet and stay alive?

What would she do if she told Adora she loved her only for it to unravel in front of her?

But Adora is still here, days, weeks, months, after and Catra starts to think that maybe, just maybe, this time it could work.  She can’t trust this place, can’t trust Shadow Weaver, can’t trust her classmates or her training or her schooling.

But Adora herself has never managed to fail her.  Not in any tangible way, anyway. Maybe she could do it.

Six months after Adora tells her she loves her, she’s promoted and Catra thinks for a moment they’ve finally found a way out together.  A way, if not to escape this place, to at least find themselves with looser ties to it. 

But Shadow Weaver never had any plan to loosen her grip on Catra.  She should’ve known. Adora has always been comfort for her, but she’s never quite been able to protect her.  

She soothes the hurt of knowing there will be times she has to watch Adora leave for months on end, knowing that Adora will come back to her but with experiences and travels and stories of battles she won’t get to share with the consolation that at least there’s someone in this place now with some shred of power who likes her best.  At least Adora loves her in a way that no one else here ever did. One day it’ll pay off if she keeps waiting.

Adora nudges her gently and offers to steal a skiff to sneak out and Catra smiles grudgingly and loves her for trying and for offering the kind of comfort she knows Catra needs. She knows.  She understands, or at least tries.

If they can’t run together, at least they can entertain the fantasy of it.

Catra swallows any pang at how this may be the only time she and Adora get to leave this place together and tries to enjoy it while it lasts.  

It’s beautiful, this vast and open space where they don’t have assigned spaces and duties and schedules.  Perhaps lovelier still, though, is Adora and the way she looks more like herself, somehow, even though Catra has never seen her anywhere other than the halls and rooms they grew up together in.  Grinning with her hair coming loose from where it’s pulled back, the way she grins, accomplished and capable, the wildness of the way she looks out here with nothing around that fits her even when it seems like it shouldn’t.  Catra thinks it has something to do with that way she has of finding this hope and attainability to things that Catra has never been able to grasp. 

Should she tell her now?  It seems fitting to tell her now that she loves her.  Now, when she’s more certain than she’s ever been.

But the whip of the wind is loud and, for once, Catra doesn’t want her words to be lost in it.  Adora looks at her and laughs and Catra decides she’ll tell her when they land somewhere, wherever they’re going.  She laughs with her with her and grabs the rudder, speeding forward, Adora’s half-protests mingled with laughter ringing as they drive, grateful to be lost somewhere together if only for a moment.


End file.
